news 2024

A study highlights the toxicity risks of high-protein diets, which can lead to severe neurological disorders. High-protein diets, known as ''Paleolithic diets'', are popular. Using mouse models, scientists at the University of Geneva have studied their impact. While effective in regulating weight and stabilizing diabetes, these diets are not without risks.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and Empa have developed a hydrogel implant that can help prevent endometriosis, a condition that affects a great many women. This innovation also acts as a contraceptive. Hydrogels have a variety of use cases, including contact lenses, delivering doses of medication within the body, moisturisers, water storage in soil, cleaning polluted water and as gelling and thickening agents.

A distinct signaling pathway called TNF- drives the transformation of epithelial cells into aggressive tumor cells. During cancer progression, cells activate their own TNF- program and become invasive. This finding could help to improve early detection and treatment of patients with cancers in skin, esophagus, bladder or colon, as researchers state.

A team including researchers from the Laboratory for High Energy Physics at the University of Bern has successfully measured the interaction rates of neutrinos at unprecedented energies using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. A better understanding of these elusive elementary particles can help answer the question of why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.

Researchers at EPFL have discovered how amyloid fibrils form complex structures, shedding light on diseases like Alzheimer's and opening new doors in material science. Amyloids are protein aggregates that can form in the body, sometimes leading to diseases like Alzheimer's. These fibrils can adopt multiple shapes, known as "polymorphs", which complicate our understanding of their role in health and disease.

When the Earth's ice masses melt, the way the planet rotates also changes. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now been able to show how climate change is altering the Earth's axis of rotation and the length of the day. The speed of rotation, which was hitherto mainly influenced by the moon, will now also depend much more on the climate.

Researchers discovered that deepwater renewal in Lake Geneva in wintertime is not only due to vertical mixing. Instead, strong currents coming from the lake's Petit Lac basin and nearshore zones of the Grand Lac play a vital role. In temperate lakes, deep vertical mixing, known as turnover, happens during winter.

A new study shows that about two percent of the population develop autoantibodies against type 1 interferons, mostly later in life. This makes individuals more susceptible to viral diseases like COVID-19. The study, conducted by researchers together with a USZ team, is based on an analysis of a large collection of historical blood samples.

Cichlids living in groups tend to turn a blind eye to their relatives shirking their duty to help as desired in various tasks in the group, such as caring for the brood. Animals that are not related to them don't seem to be offered the same lenient treatment. Researchers at the University of Bern have now been able to prove the existence of this form of "nepotism" in fish for the first time in experiments.

Two biologists from UNIGE determined how bands and then spots are formed on the skin of the leopard gecko. While the patterns and colours of lizards' skin are fascinating, the mechanisms behind them are largely unknown. A team from the University of Geneva studied the leopard gecko, a popular lizard, to understand how the bands on the skin of juveniles turn into spots when they reach adulthood.

An international research team led by Silvia Spezzaferri from the University of Freiburg has discovered why the Antarctic polar ice cap is melting faster on the western side of the continent than on the eastern side. New drillings and sophisticated modeling have shown that this phenomenon can be traced back to the original formation of the ice sheet 34 million years ago .

Researchers are developing a process inspired by nature that efficiently recovers europium from old fluorescent lamps. The approach could lead to the long-awaited recycling of rare earth metals. Rare earth metals are not as rare as their name suggests. However, they are indispensable for the modern economy.

Researchers at EPFL have made a breakthrough in understanding how neural network-based generative models perform against traditional data sampling techniques in complex systems, unveiling both challenges and opportunities for AI's future in data generation. The world of artificial intelligence (AI) has recently seen significant advancements in generative models, a type of machine-learning algorithms that "learn" patterns from set of data in order to generate new, similar sets of data.

Researchers from the University of Basel have looked at how the ferromagnetic properties of electrons in the two-dimensional semiconductor molybdenum disulfide can be better understood. They revealed a surprisingly simple way of measuring the energy needed to flip an electron spin. Ferromagnetism is an important physical phenomenon that plays a key role in many technologies.

A new study published by the Grassi laboratory and collaborators in "Cell Reports Medicine" demonstrates that releasing the inhibitory effect of adenosine-triphosphate (ATP) on secretory IgA (Immunoglobulin A) production in the gut protects from enteropathy and restores growth in malnourished newborns.

A new electrolyte design for lithium metal batteries could significantly boost the range of electric vehicles. Researchers at ETH Zurich have radically reduced the amount of environmentally harmful fluorine required to stabilise these batteries. Lithium metal batteries are among the most promising candidates of the next generation of high-energy batteries.

EPFL engineers have created a device that can efficiently convert heat into electrical voltage at temperatures lower than that of outer space. The innovation could help overcome a significant obstacle to the advancement of quantum computing technologies, which require extremely low temperatures to function optimally.

As part of the GreenFjord project, prof. Samuel Jaccard from the University of Lausanne and five other scientists board the sailing vessel Forel to carry out a sampling and analysis campaign in SW Greenland.

Scientists from USI in collaboration with italian scientists have made a significant discovery by identifying a novel anti-aging therapeutic. The study is published in the prestigious journal "Nature Aging". Aging is a primary risk factor for the development of numerous chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, chronic kidney disease and cancer.

A team from the University of Geneva has succeeded in determining the exact moment when the brain detects another person's gaze direction. The gaze plays a central role in everyday social interactions. Our capacity for instant communication relies on the brain's ability to detect and interpret the direction of others' gaze.